The World Bank is seriously mulling over suspension of disbursement of funds for its National Highway projects in the country if the work on them is not expedited and safety concerns are not addressed within a fortnight as they have been assured by the Centre. The World Bank’s acting country director Rachid Benmessaoud told The Indian Express that while they were happy with the Government’s recent ‘high-level attention’ to the issue, “the Bank does reserve its right to use legal remedies available to it, including suspension of the disbursement of funds, if adequate progress is not made in addressing these issues within a short period of time”. Exasperated with the slow project progress, Benmessaoud said at the current rate of work, projects would take another decade to complete.“Our concerns centre on the poor implementation performance of five road packages under the Lucknow Muzaffarpur National Highway Project (LMNHP) which should have been open to traffic this month but, at the current rate of progress, will not be ready in 10 years. Four of these road stretches are in Bihar and one in Uttar Pradesh. The progress of these five contract packages 5, 9, 10, 11 and 12 has been particularly slow due to poor implementation by the contractors and the consultants supervising the contractors, as well as inadequate contract management on the part of the NHAI,” Benmessaoud said.Any suspension of the WB funding would badly hit the NH upgradation in Bihar as the WB-funded ($620 mn) LMNHP seeks to transform the 513-km national highway between Lucknow and Muzaffarpur (in Bihar) into a modern, four-lane road and to cut travel time on this important connector by 40 per cent. The Lucknow-Muzaffarpur highway is part of the crucial East-West Corridor of the Government’s National Highways Development Programme (NHDP). At present, the progress on it stands at a mere 18-20 per cent.The Indian Express had reported how the dismal performance on WB-funded stretches and lack of safety provisions on these projects had snowballed into a conflict between the NHAI and WB officials recently, and the Finance Minister had to intervene this week to assure the WB that these projects would be expedited. The NHAI has been asked to put its house in order and ensure that this project shapes up at once. While it is learnt that NHAI/Ministry of Shipping Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) was initially not taking the WB fund suspension threat seriously as they feel that these projects can easily be done on BOT toll format, in the current global economic scenario, losing out on funds for infrastructural development is not being viewed as a desirable move by the Centre. Several rounds of meetings between MORTH, NHAI and Finance Ministry top brass have been held and more are scheduled to resolve the conflict with the WB.The WB is deeply concerned about the inadequate attention being paid to construction safety issues on work sites of the LMNHP and has repeatedly drawn NHAI’s attention to this. Last month, an under-construction flyover along the LMNHP collapsed, killing seven people.“The Bank is also apprehensive about the large number of variations on work contracts. Under the loan deal, we have asked NHAI to share these documents with the bank but nothing has happened. The bank has raised its concerns over the LMNHP several times, and the last of many letters was sent as recently as September 4 this year. Prior to that, the bank has been consistently flagging these issues over the last two years. A Design and Construction Review of Bank-financed NHAI contracts was also undertaken in 2007 and the report, which reiterated the same concerns and provided recommendations, was shared with the NHAI last year,” added Benmessaoud.LMNHP was part of the review conducted and that is a case study of all that has dragged the project behind, say experts who conducted it. While the preparation of the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for LMNHP took 2.5 years, the report is said to have found that there were several design and alignment changes introduced even after that. While work was awarded with just 0.5 km land availability, it took another three months for the contractor to mobilise resources. Still, the safety audit along the 36-km length of LMNHP-I is learnt to have spotted as many as 350 “high hazard” locations including work zone hazards. LMNHP-12 near Muzzafarpur was even worse off with one of the two partners in contract almost absent from the scene.The review report ascertained that the average timeframe for completion of NHAI work contracts starting from selection DPR consultants to completion of works was a staggering 108 months or nine years.Potholed stretchIndia: Design and Construction Review of National Highways Projects — Lessons Learned Report, 2007, by the World Bank pointed out:• Failure to anticipate field conditions, traffic needs,• Changes in design, alignment after contractors are mobilised• Inadequate planning, geometric and traffic designs• Lack of road safety awareness at ‘all levels of execution’• Delay in handing over of land• Highly deficient survey works• Usage of outdated land revenue maps to assess • Unrealistic timeframes for design, construction contracts leading to huge delays• Lack of accountability, professionalism in consultancy industry• Lack of capacity for design review, checks• Inadequate design, supervision personnel
